Eiji Yoshikawa Quotes

“You're going to find people from all over the country, everyone hungry for money and position. You won't make a name for yourself just doing what the next man does. You'll have to distinguish yourself in some way.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Fighting isn't all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and
are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A
serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining
his spirit than with developing martial skills.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Hold on to your life and make it honest and brave.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“I want to lead an important life. I want to do it because I was born a human being.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“It is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Her only weapons were her tears.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“The world is always full of the sound of waves.
The little fishes, abandoning themselves to the waves, dance and sing, and play, but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it depth?”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Not only must a warrior be strong with his bow, but he must have a heart full of pity for all living creatures.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“The greatest happiness of life was to stand at the difficult border between success and failure.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Call them robbers and cutthroats
were they not amiable enough when they had sufficient to fill their bellies? Something was out of joint in a world that drove these men to steal.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“He saw the white paper as the great universe of nonexistence. A single stroke would give rise to existence within it. He could evoke rain or wind at will, but whatever he drew, his heart would remain in the painting forever. If his heart was tainted, the picture would be tainted; if his heart was listless, so would the picture be. If he attempted to make a show of his craftsmanship, it could not be concealed. Men's bodies fade away, but ink lives on. The image of his heart would continue to breathe after he himself was gone.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Should misfortune visit the Court, that can only be the result of its continued abuses. If the palace is attacked, that can only be the result of misgovernment. I can hardly be held responsible for the outcome.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

Don't yield! Keep up your courage! The same sun looks down on all of us!

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Anywhere there is life, there are eyes. And things, too, speak to those who have ears to hear.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt, food was more important than a woman's suffering.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Is that so? He who lives in the mountains years for the city, and the city-dweller would rather live in the mountains," the Abbot chuckled, "and nothing is ever to one's liking ...”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

It's no good to want to win still more when you have already won.

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“It's interesting, isn't it? Being in the world.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“People were born with two hands; why not use both of them? As it was, swordsmen fought with only one sword, and often one hand. This made sense, so long as everybody followed the same practice. But if one combatant were to employ two swords at once, what chance would an opponent using only one have of winning?”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

It was only leaves and branches.

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Here
you warriors
why this moaning and complaining? Have you no more sense than toads and vipers? Our time hasn't come. Have you no patience? Are we not the 'trodden weed' still? The time is not yet here for us to raise our heads. Must you still complain?”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Through his mad fancying he remembered Mokunosuke's words: "Whoever you are, you are a man after all. You are no cripple with those fine limbs." Whether he was the son of an emperor or the child of an intrigue, was he not a child of the heavens and the earth?”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“The large strings hummed like rain, The small strings whispered like a secret, Hummed, whispered-and then were intermingled Like a pouring of large and small pearls into a plate of jade. We heard an oriole, liquid, hidden among flowers. We heard a brook bitterly sob along a bank of sand ... By the checking of its cold touch, the very string seemed broken As though it could not pass; and the notes, dying away Into a depth of sorrow and concealment of lament, Told even more in silence than they had told in sound ... A silver vase abruptly broke with a gush of water, And out leapt armored horses and weapons that clashed and smote- And before she laid her pick down, she ended with one stroke, And all four strings made one sound, as of rending silk.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“If the talents I was born with are the right ones, I may someday achieve my goal. If not, I may go through life being as stupid as I am now.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“If a man wanted to put the entire universe in his breast, he couldn't do it with his chest stuck out.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

She needed intimacy and a sense of partaking in, not just observing, real life.

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Yes, you crows, Once in a while There's a need for housecleaning, But not only in Nara. It's nature's way To make everything new again. So spring can rise from the ground, We burn leaves, We burn fields. Sometimes we want snow to fall, Sometimes we want a housecleaning. Oh, you crows! Feast away! What a spread! Soup straight from the eye sockets, And thick red sake. But don't have too much Or you'll surely get drunk.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

I seem to hear thousands of voices
the voices of the common folk in the marketplace
urging me to go forward and do what must be done. More is at stake now than my life. On me turns the future of the warriors. Let's not quibble longer, lest this rare opportunity slip through my fingers.

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Die? Then so be it.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“You're safer out in the open than you are crouching in the woodshed listening for footsteps and going crazy.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

Is there anything that will not decay?

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“A fief, the elder Hosokawa had advised, was like a castle wall built of many rocks. A rock that could not be cut to fit in comfortably with the others would weaken the whole structure, even though the rock itself might be of admirable size and quality.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“The young man rushed toward them. "Stand and fight!" he was shouting. "Is running away the Yoshioka version of the Art of War? I personally don't want to kill you, but my Drying Pole's still thirsty. The least you can do, cowards that you are, is leave your heads behind.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Musashi wondered how many people there were who on this night could say: "I was right. I did what I should have done. I have no regrets." For him, each resounding knell evoked a tremor of remorse. He could conjure up nothing but the things he had done wrong during the last year. Nor was it only the last year-the year before, and the year before that, all the years that had gone by had brought regrets. There had not been a single year devoid of them. Indeed, there had hardly been one day.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“If the young cannot harbor great dreams in their souls, who can?”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

Who among all the provincial lords-besides Lord Asakura-is a man upon whom we could rely? Who is the most reliable military leader in the country today? Does such a man exist?" "He

— Eiji Yoshikawa

The authorities make them hate him. Otsu, these people are simple. They're afraid of the government, so afraid that if it so decrees, they'll drive away their fellow villagers, even their own kin.

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“To him, any place could serve as home-more than that: wherever he happened to be was the universe.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Whether people were great or not, there was not much variety in their inner life experience. Any difference lay merely in how they dealt with common human weaknesses.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

There's not much benefit in attacking an empty house.

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“I wouldn't say Musashi is ordinary. But he is. That's what's extraordinary about him. He is not content to rely on whatever natural gifts he may have. Knowing he is ordinary, he is constantly trying to improve himself. No one appreciates the agonizing effort he's had to make. Now that his years of training have yielded such spectacular results, everybody's talking about his 'God-given talent.' That's how men who don't try very hard comfort themselves.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“I want to dedicate myself to training and discipline. I want to spend every moment of every day working to improve myself.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“It does happen, of course, that the priesthood has been on bad terms with womankind for some three thousand years. You see, Buddhism teaches that women are evil. Fiends. Messengers of hell. I've spent years immersed in the scriptures, so it's no accident that you and I fight all the time.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“The world is a stone wall ... and they have put the stones so close together that there is not a single crack through which one may enter.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“To Kiyomori each stall, each soul here seemed borne under by the crushing weight of the world; everyone here was a pitiful weed, trodden underfoot
a conglomeration of human lives putting down roots in this slime, living and letting live in the struggle to survive; and he was stirred by the fearful and magnificent courage communicated by the scene.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“Sincerity, even if it speaks with a stutter, will sound eloquent when inspired.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“People tend to be put off by the idea of selling sex, but if you spend a winter's night with one of them and talk with her about her family and so on, you're likely to find she's just like any other woman.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa

The truth of the scholar, alone in his study, does not always accord with what the world at large considers to be true.

— Eiji Yoshikawa

“A wise man who cultivates wisdom may sometimes drown in it.”

— Eiji Yoshikawa